1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to conveyor systems for changing the attitude of a conveyed item relative to a conveyed path. More particularly, the invention relates to conveyor systems that convey an item having a position characteristic and rotating the item while simultaneously changing the elevation of successive items.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Wieners have become an increasingly large portion of an individual's diet. The fact that wieners utilize nutritionally valuable portions of meat producing animals that would otherwise go to waste results in both decreased cost to the consumer as well as increased utilization of a particular animal. In times of rising costs and decreasing supply, these objectives are important to society as a whole.
Wieners are often pictorially advertised, in photographs and on television, as having a continuous spiral grill stripe or score mark around the circumference thereof. In fact, though tremendously appealing to the eye, there is no currently known method or apparatus for producing a wiener product that has such a grill stripe. It is also not feasible for a consumer to make such a grill stripe using an outdoor grill or barbecue. This is because an outdoor barbecue cooks through burning coals or gas heat. The cooking area of the grill or barbecue therefore is uniformly hot. The steel members forming the grill itself are not necessarily hotter than the surrounding air space. Therefore, no, or little apparent, score or grill mark is placed upon the wiener when it is grilled outdoors.
Steak meat products do take a grill or score mark from a grill or barbecue, which does enhance their appearance and desirability. This does not occur with a wiener because of the nature of the wiener itself. The shape and homogeneous content of the wiener make it difficult to place any kind of mark on the wiener without burning the wiener.
Cooking by applying electrical current to a highly resistant wire is of course well known. Convection ovens, toasters and many other household appliances use radiated heat to cook in this manner. None of these appliances are directed toward utilizing the heat in the resistant wires to place a grill stripe on the item being cooked for purposes of enhancing its appearance.
The consumer of wieners, or other meat products, is not likely to go to any additional trouble just to place a grill stripe on a meat product. It is also virtually impossible for a consumer to place a continuous grill mark around the circular wiener, which is the most asthetically appealing appearance the wiener can make.
Though wieners have been advertised as having a continuous grill stripe around their circumference, no such product is currently known to be available. If such a product were available, it could cheaply be manufactured by placing the grill stripe on the wiener after production and during the packaging process.
Continuous conveyors utilized for transporting wieners during the packaging process are currently well known. Such conveyors consist of a pair of parallel continuous chains having support members or carriages mounted thereon to convey individual wieners from a loader to a packaging machine.